Carolina Golf

He's here, he's there ... Puggy's everywhere -- except Tucson

This past weekend, Puggy Blackmon managed to be in two places at the same time -- or so went the rumor.

As Tiger Woods went head-to-head on Sunday with Stewart Cink in the finals of the World Golf Championship Accenture Match Play, Blackmon was there in Tucson, Ariz., at the Gallery at Dove Mountain, working as an advisor/swing coach/guru for Cink, who played for Blackmon during his stint as golf coach at Georgia Tech.

At least, that’s what more than a few people in South Carolina -- where Blackmon’s full-time job is as director of golf at USC -- thought they knew.

In reality, Blackmon was a continent and then some away from Arizona, traveling with the Gamecocks women’s team as it competed in the Puerto Rico Invitational in San Juan, P.R. And no, Cink didn’t have a high-speed jet on hand to whisk Puggy from desert to Caribbean.

“I guess people heard Tim Rosaforte (writer for Golf World magazine and an on-air commentator for Golf Channel during its Match Play coverage) talking about me and thought I was there,” Blackmon said Tuesday from Puerto Rico as the USC women headed into the tournament’s final round. “Tim had called to ask me about Stewart. But no, I haven’t been in Arizona.”

Not this week, anyway.

In his first season since surrendering the head coaching reins at USC to former assistant Bill McDonald, Blackmon has been enjoying the freedom (if not the reduced salary) that comes with his new position. He has spent time traveling the West Coast with David Duval, who’s trying to revive his PGA Tour career, and former USC player and PGA Tour rookie Kyle Thompson.

His new job, which pays $35,000 -- as golf coach, Blackmon pulled down $85,000 in salary and supplements, not including incentive bonuses for winning last spring’s NCAA West Regional and for the Gamecocks’ appearance in the NCAA Championship field -- “frees me up now,” he said. Blackmon spent two weeks with Duval at the Bob Hope Chrysler Classic and in San Diego at the Buick Invitational, and did an out-Monday-back-Tuesday to Los Angeles for the Northern Trust Open.

“David wanted me to spend more time with him after Winged Foot (the 2006 U.S. Open),” Blackmon said. “It’s great, and it’s fun to bring back what I’m seeing out there to our kids at Carolina. I think it’s a good deal all around.”

Yes, he did watch the 8 and 7 whipping laid on Cink by Tiger. But Cink, he said, works mostly with Butch Harmon these days, not him.

“I do think Stewart continues to get better every year,” Blackmon said of the two-time Verizon Heritage champion, who excelled in match-play competition for the 2004 and 2006 Ryder Cup teams and the 2005 and 2007 Presidents Cup squads. “He’s always so consistent, going way back. Now he’s trying to make a breakthrough.”

That "breakthrough" ran into a buzzsaw in Woods, who shot 14-under par for the 29 holes of their finals match.  “I really thought he might give Tiger a good run,” Blackmon said. “But it looked to me like (Cink) was tired; he was pulling everything (left). What he did to Justin (Leonard, in Saturday’s semifinals), he needed to do that on Sunday, make all those bombs (long putts).

“But I think he’s evolving, and it seems like he’s there every week (on the PGA Tour). He’s such a great thinker on the course. And $800,000” -- Cink’s runner-up check -- “isn’t bad.”

The same could be said for Blackmon's life right now. In addition to overseeing the men’s and women’s teams, he works with both teams' players, focusing on their short games, a long-time specialty.

The grind of coaching, recruiting and being on the road was what led Blackmon to approach athletics director Eric Hyman last spring with the proposal to restructure USC’s program. In order to afford a men’s coach and a director of golf, the women’s and men's assistant coaching positions were merged into one -- Michael Burcin, formerly an in-office administrator -- and Blackmon agreed to take a pay cut.

“I I told Eric I wanted to bring Bill in, and I gave him about 70 percent of my compensation package,” Blackmon said. “I had got to the point (where) I’d done this 25 years, I felt like I know how to do it (and) I think I can lend myself to both teams.

“But I wanted to move in other directions, plus I think this gives us the best chance to win a national championship. I want to see us win at a high level, so with Bill, I put my money where my mouth was -- literally.”

The arrangement is not common in college golf -- not yet, Blackmon said. USC is the lone SEC school to have a director of golf over men’s and women’s programs, but Illinois, Purdue, Minnesota and Southern Cal have done so, and “everyone we talked to said they had no negatives,” he said.

“Most programs have two head coaches, two entry-level assistants. This way, we have one assistant and me, with my 25 years. I think that’s what you’ll see a lot of soon.”

What he hopes you’ll also see, Blackmon said, is a new and improved Duval on the PGA Tour. “He’s starting to hit it well, but he hurt his neck,” he said. “He didn’t do a lot over the winter, and I wore him out hitting balls at the Hope. So he couldn’t play, but I think it’s coming.”

Meanwhile in Puerto Rico, Blackmon shared chores with new women’s coach Kalen Anderson, working her first tournament for USC. “I think Bill and Kalen are great hires,” he said. “I think it’s all working out.”

He even got to scout out the golf course which will play host to the PGA Tour’s inaugural Puerto Rico Open, which is March 20-23, the same week as the next WGC event, the CA Championship at Doral. Blackmon plans to be back there, this time with Duval.

“I e-mailed David and told him it’s a nice setup, but not what he’s accustomed to,” Blackmon said. “It’s not long, the fairways are wide and the greens are a little slow. If the wind doesn’t blow, they’ll shoot nothing.”

Blackmon plans to be there to see it happen. Just not at the same time as being somewhere else.

TRACKING THE TOUR -- It’s a year (and this fall’s Ryder Cup competition) away, but the Presidents Cup is back in the news this week, with Fred Couples (U.S.) and Greg Norman (Internationals) named as captains of the two teams on Tuesday. The competition will be held at San Francisco’s Harding Park in 2009.

Cink, by virtue of his finish at the Match Play, is in fifth place in the points standings (guess who’s No. 1? OK, it’s Woods). Former Clemson All-American (and two-time Tour winner) D.J. Trahan is in ninth place. Other S.C. players on the radar screen: former Clemson star Jonathan Byrd (26th, up from 31st last week), Columbia’s Charles Warren (33rd, down from 26th) and Greer’s Bill Haas (34th, down from 27th).

... Trahan also holds down the eighth (and last automatic) spot for this September’s Ryder Cup, to be played at Valhalla in Louisville. Trahan leads No. 9 Justin Leonard, a match-play competition veteran, 1,128.39-972.32 in Ryder Cup points.

.... In case you missed it, Bishopville’s Tommy “Two Gloves” Gainey and Myrtle Beach’s Dustin Johnson were given sponsor’s exemptions Monday for the Verizon Heritage. Gainey, the former Big Break winner on Golf Channel, made the cut at last week’s Mayakoba Classic in Mexico, while Johnson -- the former All-American at Coastal Carolina and Columbia native -- has won more than $400,000 so far in 2008 and is already a candidate for PGA Tour rookie of the year.

BOB GILLESPIE

Byrd's flight: Makin' the Sweet 16 at the Accenture Match Play

    If you've been following the World Golf Championship's Accenture Match Play, you know the most impressive player so far (based on one-sided wins) has been former Clemson All-American Jonathan Byrd, who grew up in Columbia. After ousting No. 1 seed (in the 16-player Ben Hogan Division) Ernie Els, 6 and 5, on Wednesday, Byrd crushed Argentina's Andres Romero, 6 and 4. Romero was last seen almost winning the 2007 British Open with a 10-birdie run on Sunday, before finishing double bogey-bogey to wind up third behind winner Padraig Harrington and playoff loser Sergio Garcia.

    Byrd has shot 10-under-par through his first two rounds at the Gallery at Dove Mountain near Tucson, Ariz., and faces defending Match Play champion Henrik Stenson (whose wife played golf for the USC women's team) today at 1 p.m. EST. The winner of that match will meet the winner of the fan-favorite tussle between Woody "Aquaman" Austin and Verizon Heritage champion Boo Weekley for a spot in the final four. The tournament is being aired by Golf Channel.

    Courtesy of the good folks with the PGA Tour's media relations staff, here are Byrd's thoughts following Thursday's second round:

PGA TOUR: (That was a) decisive win. I think the first hole you were able to make a good look at birdie, made the par and Andres bogeyed. Always good to get up early in match play?
JONATHAN BYRD: Absolutely. I've been fortunate the last two days to have that. He missed about a four-footer, five-footer on the first hole. And then just like yesterday, I was able to not have to hit great shots but able to hit quality shots and kind of keep the pressure on him.
And the third hole he three-putted from the middle of the green after I lagged it up close. And then -- one of the turnarounds, I think I was 3-up going into 5. I made a great birdie on 4. I hit a terrible tee shot and was able to halve him on 5 and then halved 7 and we both birdied 8.
He hit it about eight (feet). So I'm 3-up on 8. He hits a great shot in there about 10 feet and I hit it about 40 feet and I made the putt. Then he made it on top of me. I stayed 3-up.
He gave me one more hole with a bogey. I think he made three or four bogeys, and I still haven't made a bogey yet this week. That's good in match play.

PGA TOUR: You're in the last 16 (in the Accenture brackets') standing; now it's got to feel good.
JONATHAN BYRD: Absolutely. Like I said, I'm coming in with no expectations. You could run into somebody and run into a buzz saw and get beat playing well, so I feel fortunate to have won the first two. I'm really enjoying playing match play, which I don't get to do too often.

PGA TOUR: Talk about being at the Match Play and maybe some goals for the upcoming season.
JONATHAN BYRD: This is a good experience, I feel, for match play for Ryder Cup. That's obviously a big goal to make Ryder Cup. Every day I get here is good experience for Ryder Cup.

    Did Byrd say "buzz saw"? So far, he's the one with the wicked teeth. Stay tuned.

BOB GILLESPIE

Going one-on-one with the "Big Easy"

    Columbia’s Jonathan Byrd had just landed in Phoenix on Sunday night, still uncertain who he would face in Wednesday’s first round of the World Golf Championships (WGC) Accenture Match Play Championship, when the call came.

    Hearing the name of his opponent quickly got the former Clemson All-American’s attention: Ernie Els, ranked No. 4 in the Official World Golf Rankings.

    Just 48 hours away from his first significant match-play competition in nearly nine years, Byrd just laughed when asked what it would be like to square off against the “Big Easy,” a veteran of Presidents Cups’ match play and a one-time challenger to Tiger Woods as the world’s No. 1 player.

    “Well, I wouldn’t want to get in a fist fight with (Els),” Byrd said with a chuckle. “He’s a foot taller than me, a massive man. But he’s really easy-going, a likeable guy. I can’t think of a bad thing I’ve ever heard about him.”

    Byrd, though built like an NFL defensive back, tops out at 5-foot-9 and 160 pounds; Els goes 6-foot-3, 210. But as both men know – especially Els, whose best finish in this event is fourth, in 2001, and who has lost three times in the first round – in match play, size does not matter.

    Els will be the top-seeded player in the Ben Hogan division, one of four 16-man brackets for the Match Play, which moves this year from La Costa Resort in California to the Gallery at Dove Mountain, near Tucson. Byrd, No. 62 in the world (he slipped from No. 59 after missing the AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am cut), would’ve been paired up with No. 3 Steve Stricker, but the withdrawal of No. 45 Brett Wetterich moved everyone below him in the rankings to move up a spot.

    In the Accenture Match Play, winners advance to the next opponent via brackets (the Els-Byrd winner will meet Retief Goosen or Andres Romero). The PGA Tour players like the NCAA Basketball Tournament-like system (this after all is a sport whose FedEx Cup is modeled on NASCAR) because it offers a break from the weekly stroke-play routine they face the rest of the season.

    “I love match play because it’s different,” Byrd said. “The 72-hole format is worn out for us, we play that every event. So just to play a different format, especially in such an elite event, I don’t see how you can not enjoy it.”

    Of course, with novelty comes unfamiliarity, at least for those (like Byrd) who have never played in the Ryder Cup or Presidents Cup. Even for those who have, this is not a team competition, but a survive-and-advance format which most haven’t seen since … well, last year’s Accenture.

    Byrd’s last stab at match play was in the 1999 Walker Cup, when he was still an amateur and part of the losing U.S. team against Great Britain and Ireland.

    “Mostly, I remember we lost,” Byrd said. “The team concept is very different (from the Match Play). That Sunday, we were going to lose, and I had a one-on-one with (GB&I’s) Graeme Storm. He won 1-up on the final hole, but it was very concentrated and intense going head-to-head.”

    As much as the format, Byrd is excited to be playing in a WGC event. In fact, 2008 is shaping up as one of the most crucial seasons of his seven-year career: he will play in the Masters in April after posting his third career victory in 2007, and he learned earlier this week that his FedEx Cup total already assures him a spot in the U.S. Open at Torrey Pines, near San Diego, in June.

    “This being a Ryder Cup year, you don’t want to miss the majors,” Byrd said. “It’s hard enough to make the Ryder Cup, but if you’re not in the World Championship events and the majors, you’ve really got to play well.”

    To prepare for the Match Play, Byrd skipped last week’s Northern Trust Open in Los Angeles, instead playing match-play rounds with assistant professionals at Sea Island, Ga.’s Frederica Club, his home course. “Just to get in that mindset,” he said.

    “I think there’s a lot of strategy for match play. Every guy has got (a strategy).”

    So what’s his? Byrd laughed again.

    “Uh … I’m still figuring that out,” he said. “Mainly, you just go play. One big thing, I think, is to have no expectations, because anything can happen.

    “The beauty of the format is (that) the best player doesn’t always win. You’re playing the other guy as well as the golf course, and you can win shooting 65 or 76. You can lose while shooting a bunch of birdies.”

    Just ask Tiger Woods. The world’s best has won twice (2003 and 2004), but lost in 2000 to Darren Clarke in the finals, and twice has lost to short-hitting Nick O'Hern in match play. Last year, Henrik Stenson, then a relative unknown, topped defending champion Geoff Ogilvie, 2 and 1, in the finals.

    If nothing else, Byrd figures his normal approach to tournament play will serve him well this week. “I don’t get too emotional, and in match play, you have to play with a lack of emotion, or you can make a mistake,” he said. “If you lose one or two holes and get emotional, that can hurt you.”

    That should make for an interesting pairing with the low-key Els, who knows a thing or two about match play. Byrd has to reach back in his memory, but not too far where it matters.

    “I have good memories of playing well in match play,” he said, “and I’m playing well right now.”

    And in match play, it sometimes turns out that the bigger they come, the harder they fall.   

TRACKING THE TOUR.

    By tying for 22nd at the Northern Trust Open (as did former Clemson teammate Lucas Glover), D.J. Trahan now holds the No. 4 spot in the FedEx Cup standings. Trahan, a Mount Pleasant resident, trails No. 1 (and Northern Trust winner) Phil Mickelson, No. 2 J.B. Holmes and No. 3 K.J. Choi. …

    Red-hot rookie Dustin Johnson cooled off Sunday, stumbling to a 7-over-par 78 to fall from a tie for 13^th entering the final round to a T-59, costing himself about $83,000. Johnson, who opened with rounds of 68-73-69, had two bogeys and a double his final four holes, plus a triple-bogey six on the par-3 sixth. He did lead the tournament in average driving distance (319.8 yards). …

    Columbia’s Charles Warren was perhaps the ultimate victim of high winds during Friday’s second round at Los Angeles, shooting 10-over 81 to miss the cut. Interestingly, Warren eagled his first hole, but then shot 12-over the last 17 holes (six bogeys and three doubles). That came one day after he opened with an even-par 71.

BOB GILLESPIE

       

"Mama Carole's boy" tearing up the PGA Tour, and other tidbits

Behind every great PGA Tour player is a nervous, excited grandmother who text-messages, computer-watches and paces during every tournament.

Okay, so there’s maybe ONE player who matches that description: former Coastal Carolina (and Dutch Fork High) star Dustin Johnson, who as we speak is on pace to capture PGA Tour rookie of the year honors, especially after Sunday’s tie for seventh at the AT&T Pebble Beach National Pro-Am.

If the voting were left up to Myrtle Beach’s Carole Jones -- “Mama Carole” to the 23-year-old Johnson -- it would be a runaway.

“I could not be prouder,” Jones said Sunday in an e-mail to your friendly golf correspondent. “He is a good player and a gentleman and the coolest player ever! Now on to next weekend.”

The effervescent Jones concluded her regularly messages the same way as always: “Hugs, Carole.”

In fact, Johnson’s best finish of 2008 -- worth a season’s-best $193,500, which boosted him to $432,706 after just four tournaments -- could’ve been even better. He was tied for third place at 7-under-par heading into Sunday’s finale at Pebble Beach, and was in the day’s final group with co-leaders Vijay Singh and Dudley Hart, both at 9-under.

Johnson’s closing 73 (after rounds of 73-68-68) dropped him out of contention, but he wasn’t alone, as Steve Lowery, tied for fifth at the day’s start, rallied with a final 68, then outlasted the faltering Singh (71) in a one-hole playoff.

Along the way, Johnson demonstrated the talent that made him the only 2006-07 collegian to make it through PGA Tour Q-school, recording a pair eagles (one on a par-4) during his Friday and Saturday rounds while making his fourth straight cut.

This from the PGATour.com Web site prior to Sunday’s round:

“Johnson is the ultimate wild card. (He) is already 4-for-4 in making cuts in his rookie season on Tour, and his incredible length off the tee has been under-documented. If Johnson rallies from two shots down, will anyone really be shocked? (Certainly not Mama Carole). This kid can hit some wonderful shots, and it would be a disappointment if he doesn’t go on to win multiple times on Tour.”

Say amen, Carole.

Jones isn’t the only person who follows Johnson these days; far from it. His father, Scott, who caddied for Dustin during Q-school, also monitors his son’s play every Thursday-Sunday. So does Coastal Carolina coach Allen Terrell, who has been to the West Coast to offer instruction. And so do plenty of Midlands players who watched Johnson grow and develop -- not without some career-threatening moments of youthful indiscretion, including one memorable brush with the law that landed him briefly in jail, as have been chronicled in this and other newspapers.

But his time at Coastal seems to have screwed Johnson’s head on straight -- time will be the ultimate judge of that -- and having Jones around to love him and occasionally scold him, plus Terrell’s tough-love approach as his coach, have produced a player of prodigious skills and promise. Mark it down: Dustin Johnson will, indeed, win multiple PGA Tour titles and play in majors before he’s done.

But that’s for the future. Right now, Carole Jones is a self-admitted mess: living and dying with every shot via the long-distance perspective of the Internet. This week, I asked her to tell what that was like. She can do it better than I can:

“Well, I text him every morning and he texts me back, and every day when he finishes, the same. I talk to him about three times. His dad talks to him every night. (Columbia/Irmo instructor) Jimmy Koosa texts him every morning and talks to him every night ...

“I set up my computer in the morning for the PGA Tour leader board and the live hole. It is slow, and I walk around nervously, will sometimes walk outside and get a breath of fresh air, but run back to check. I will not answer the phone. When it’s on TV, I am looking at it and listening to it AND the background audio from the computer.

“... friends and family have brought me calls from people I haven’t seen in years. My college roommate came (Sunday) from New Bern, N.C., just to watch with me. People that Dustin stayed with (during tournaments) as an amateur are still keeping up with him and call me. He has a fan club in Minnesota (!).

“My neighbor goes to Applebee’s every day (during a tournament) at 5 p.m. to meet a bunch of guys ... he called CBS to complain about them not showing Dustin. I do not even know this guy except to speak. ... My brother in Mexico called to tell me he bought a bar where the (Mayakoba Golf Classic at Riviera Maya, Feb. 21-24) is going to be played, and they were all screaming in the background in their (Mexican) accent(s): ‘Dustin Johnson!’ He can take all his friends at no charge and they will welcome him: another fan club. It goes on and on.”

Understand, though, while Dustin Johnson is already proving to be skilled beyond his years as a professional player, to Carole Jones he’s still her little grandson, as she recounts in the following:

“I talked to him last night and he was at the airport getting to (Los Angeles, for this week’s Northern Trust Open, the former L.A. Open). ... The Mama Carole in me said, ‘Do you have a place to stay?’ His answer was, ‘Yes, ma’am, I have a hotel room.’ I have got to stop that, but I did it for so long that I can’t help but worry about my precious boy.”

Hey, if Johnson was your kid, or especially your grandkid, admit it: you’d be the same way.

NOTING THE TOUR.

Waiting for an opponent. Columbia's Jonathan Byrd failed to make the cut at the AT&T, but he held onto enough of his Official World Golf Ranking to lock up a spot in the World Golf Championships/Accenture Match Play Championship, which will be played at The Gallery at Dove Mountain in Marana, Ariz., the same week as the Tour’s visit to Mexico.

Byrd, who was 59th prior to the AT&T, is No. 62 in the updated rankings released Monday morning. The top 64 face off in match play, battling through six rounds (think the NCAA Basketball Tournament, only golf instead of hoops) to the finals. Sweden’s Henrik Stenson (married to a former USC women’s golfer, by the way) is the defending champion.

The former Clemson All-American will have to wait until Friday at 7 p.m. to find out who he’ll meet in the first round, though. The field won’t be finalized until players commit or withdraw by the usual PGA Tour deadline of 5 p.m., at which point the remaining highest-ranked 64 players will be matched up.

If every player in the rankings played, Byrd at No. 62 would be facing No. 3 Steve Stricker. But Brett Wetterich (No. 45) is already rumored to be planning to withdraw due to injury, and others could skip the weekend. That, in turn, would move Byrd up in the field. The only players he is assured of NOT facing in the first round are No. 1 Tiger Woods and No. 2 Phil Mickelson -- and anyone ranked lower than 62nd.

So he’s go that going for him, which is good (sorry, "Caddyshack"). ...

Another MDF. D.J. Trahan, whose win at the FBR makes him the leader among S.C.-connection players in the FedEx Cup standings and on the money list (but not in the OWGR), became the latest of the state’s players to fall into the PGA Tour’s “twilight zone,” joining Byrd, Lucas Glover, Kyle Thompson and Tommy Gainey.

Trahan, who shot even-par for three rounds at the AT&T, made the cut but, under the controversial new Tour rule, was not among those playing the final round because the 54-hole cut for the top 70 and ties took in 78 or more players. This year, whenever that happens, the field to play the final round(s) is trimmed back to the next number less than 70; everyone else (10 players including Trahan) gets credit for a made cut and earns last-place money ($12.540 this week) and FedEx Cup points (52), and a wave goodbye.

They call that MDF, which stands for “made cut, did not finish.” One suspects the players who have been caught in that trap have come up with another meaning for MDF, one we probably can’t print here.

BOB GILLESPIE

Columbia's Charles Warren closing gap on PGA Tour victory

The fist pump was cocked and ready to fire. In fact, Charles Warren had the PGA Tour’s signature “big putt” celebration halfway to its completion — when his birdie attempt at the 16th hole rimmed out.

The punch stopped in mid-flight, turning into a gesture of frustration. Celebratus interruptus.

“I hit the exact putt I needed,” Warren said this week, his third-place finish at the FBR Open in Scottsdale, Ariz., still fresh in his memory. “I haven’t figured out how it didn’t stay in.”

He laughed. “The guys from the Golf Channel told me, ‘You don’t want to see the replay.’ It went in and came back out.”

The former Clemson All-American and Columbia native laughed again, if ruefully. There were other moments, other holes, he said, where he also could’ve picked up the single stroke he needed to gain a spot in the tournament’s sudden-death playoff, and thus kept alive his chance at a debut PGA Tour victory.

The 17th hole, for example, where an even-shorter putt just missed, causing Warren to slump over his long belly putter in frustration. And especially the par-5 15th, where he pulled his 225-yard second shot into the water and made a deflating bogey.

“If I could have one shot back, that’s (No. 15) the one I’d want,” he said. “I had the perfect opportunity to apply pressure” on eventual winner J.B. Holmes, who also drowned his approach at 15 and made bogey. “I just didn’t hit the shot I needed to hit.”

Yet less than 48 hours after his most recent — and, by his estimation, his best — shot at earning his first win, the 32-year-old Warren was more interested in accentuating Sunday’s positives rather than dwelling on his lost chances to join Holmes and runnerup Phil Mickelson in their one-hole shootout.

Maybe that attitude came from Warren’s plans to spend a laid-back off-week in California’s Napa Valley with his wife, Kelly, and son Charlie, age 17 months, before playing at the Northern Trust in Los Angeles a week from now. Or maybe, Warren said, it was because he couldn’t find too much fault with his performance.

“I wouldn’t do anything differently,” he said. “I’m proud of the shots I hit down the stretch. I wish a putt or two had fallen (see above), but I did exactly what I wanted: gave myself a chance to win.”

He had close calls in 2007 — his runner-up finish, albeit by five shots, at the Reno-Tahoe Open, and a tie for 10th at the Turning Stone Resort Championship, for instance — but rarely, say those who know him best, has Warren done so much right to give himself a winning chance.

“I was happy to see him in the hunt, with that focus — that’s the Charles I saw in college,” said Clemson golf coach Larry Penley, who nearly got to celebrate a second triumph in three weeks by a former player (along with D.J. Trahan’s win at the Bob Hope Chrysler Classic).

“He learned something there. He’ll look back on this, see how easy it would have been for him to win, and that’ll only give him more confidence.”

Eight holes into his final round, Warren appeared out of contention, bogeying the par-5 third (for the second time of the week) and the seventh and eighth holes to slip to 2-over for the round. He and former Clemson teammate Jonathan Byrd seemed destined to be hapless onlookers in the final pairing with Holmes.

But then Warren rallied with three straight birdies (at Nos. 11-13), pulling within a shot of the lead, and had multiple chances the final five holes to tie or take the lead.

“He battled back, put himself in position, and then you’re going to win some and lose some,” Penley said. “He’s still sorting through where he fits in out there. But one thing I do know: he’s not afraid to win.”

That’s the book on Warren dating back to his Clemson days, when he didn’t capture a tournament until his junior season, but then won the ACC and NCAA individual titles that year, and was the nation’s top collegiate golfer (with another ACC crown) as a senior.

His first two seasons, he labored in the shadows of teammates Byrd and Lucas Glover. That pattern continued into the professional ranks, where Byrd, Glover and Trahan all made it to the PGA Tour faster than Warren, who spent five seasons on the Nationwide Tour before earning a place with the big boys in 2005.

“I’ve always had more of a learning curve,” Warren said. “In college, it took me three years to win. Jonathan won before I did; on the Nationwide Tour, Jonathan won before I did.

“For better or worse, it takes me a couple of years, time to get comfortable. But at all those (other) levels, when I finally did get chances to win, I took advantage.”

He shone late in his college career, ended his elongated Nationwide Tour tenure with a bang, capturing titles in back-to-back outings.

“That’s been his track record,” said Todd Anderson, director of golf instruction at Sea Island (Ga.) Golf Club and Warren’s swing coach the past five years. “He's had to get comfortable first. (On the PGA Tour) he’s played the courses now, knows which fit his game now.

“He’s played with (Byrd, Glover and Trahan) and he knows his game is as good as theirs. It’s just a matter of time.”

Among the PGA Tour’s leaders in driving the ball — he ranked No. 1 in Total Driving (distance and accuracy) in 2007 — Warren also showed accuracy with his irons at the FBR Open. His putting remains a work in progress, but since switching last year to a belly putter, he is approaching putts with more confidence.

“Golfers tend to be traditionalists, but (the belly putter) seems to work,” he said. Warren put a new Ping putter in play last week and “my speed is a lot better, the alignment too.”

Anderson wants to see him be more aggressive with the putter — “he’s a little tentative with his speed; the same with his chipping, he tends to be a little short with his shots” — but the biggest factor, he said, is experience. Sunday, Anderson said, was a down payment on building that.

“It’s much easier to deal with something you’ve gone through,” he said. By making a title run Sunday, “Charles is moving in the right direction.”

Warren's 2008 goal is to get his first PGA Tour win, and “I think he’ll do it this year,” Anderson said. Penley agrees: “Once he figures it out, I think Charles will win multiple times,” he said.

Warren said his more immediate goal, though, is “to give myself chances to win. I think I need to be in that position a lot. That’s the difference between 90th (on the Tour money list, roughly where he finished the past two years) and making the Tour Championship (the year-end top 30).

“I haven’t given myself that many chances before. But I think I’m right on track with that.”

And should he cash in on the next chance ... well, Warren has the fist pump ready.

BOB GILLESPIE